Wednesday, 15 May 2019

This is my first photo gallery about a Coast Guard patrol vessel. In this post, you will enjoy some good photos I took some days ago when I visited the HCG080 (ΛΣ 080) Agios Efstratios, the latest of the three 58-meter Sa'ar class offshore patrol vessels (Περιπολικό Ανοικτής Θαλάσσης, ΠΑΘ) that serve with the Hellenic Coast Guard (Λιμενικό Σώμα - Ελληνική Ακτοφυλακή). These patrol vessels are the the most heavily armed boats currently in the Hellenic Coast Guard inventory. The
ships are based on the former Sa'ar 4 fast attack missile craft of the Israeli
Navy. The contract for the procurement of the ships was
signed on November 11, 2002. This was the first Israeli naval sale to a European Union country. The
first two ships, Fournoi and Ro, were built in Israel by the Israel
Shipyards Ltd and they were delivered in December 2003 and March 2004,
respectively. The third vessel, Agios Efstratios, was built in Greece by the Hellenic Shipyards S.A and was delivered in June of 2004. I would really like to thank the crew for the excellent tour aboard this very well-maintained ship and of the major vessels of Greece's Coast Guard. Enjoy the photos!

Thursday, 25 April 2019

The infographic in this article depicts all the twelve (12) classes of guided-missile cruisers of the United States Navy. These 12 classes of 15 sub-types in total include 65 vessels of which nine (9) were nuclear-powered, from 1955 until today. The vessels CG-1 through 8 and CG-10 through 12 were World War II converted cruisers; specifically former Baltimore-class heavy cruisers (CAG-1, CAG-2, CG-11 and CG-12), Cleveland-class light cruisers (CLG-3, CG-4, CG-5, CG-6, CG-7, CLG-8) and Oregon-class heavy cruisers (CG-10). CAG-1 USS Boston and CAG-2 USS Canberra retained most of their original gun armament and were later returned to their gun cruiser designations CA-69 and CA-70. Before 30 June 1975, ships CG-16 USS Leahy through CGN-38 USS Virginia (thus including also the two 11,550-ton Californias)were designated DLG or DLGN (Destroyer Leader, Guided Missile (Nuclear powered)). They were redesignated cruisers in the 1975 ship reclassification.

Saturday, 23 March 2019

The Egyptian Mistral-class LHD as seen from the Greek Chinook's loading ramp

From June 23 to 29, 2018, the bilateral joint exercise “Medousa 6” was conducted, under the existing military cooperation programme
between Greece and Egypt. The exercise included phases of activities conducted
ashore-Alexandria Naval Base and at sea-in the wider region, north of
Alexandria inside Cairo FIR. The Hellenic Armed Forces participated with two frigates, one submarine, eight F-16 fighters, one AWACS, one Super Puma SCAR helicopter, one Chinook carrier helicopter, two Apache attack helicopters, and SOF team The
Egyptian Armed Forces with one Mistral-class landing helicopter dock, two frigates, two missile boats, one submarine, six F-16 fighters, two Rafale fighters, one AWACS, a helicopter and SOF team. Cypriot Armed
Forces participated also with one patrol vessel and SOF team. The purpose of the exercise was to further advance the cooperation of the Armed Forces in a multi-threat environment. The Medusa joint exercises aim at bolstering cooperation and exchange expertise between the armed forces of Egypt and Greece. The following exclusive photos were taken from the interior of the 4th Army Aviation Helicopter Battalion (1st Army Aviation Brigade, Hellenic Army) CH-47 Chinook carrier helicopter that took part in the "Medusa 6" exercise. Enjoy!

This is a truly fascinating book about the Royal Netherlands Navy secret submarine intelligence operations during the Cold War, from the freezing Arctic Ocean to shallow waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Only a handful of people outside the Royal Netherlands Navy were aware
of these operations, as they were not NATO operations. For the first
time, In Deepest Secrecy describes these top-secret deployments
in detail. Based on interviews and extensive archival research, Jaime
Karremann reveals how the Dutch submarines followed, photographed and
listened to Soviet ships unnoticed.

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

The following images depict the most important naval forces by each country of the European region. Similarly with my previous
Naval Forces posts, I
used almost the same criteria to categorize the warships. I avoided each country's system of pennant
numbers such as -D- for Aquitaine class that allocates
the class to destroyer type despite the non destroyer's capabilities. I tried to avoid also the unfair
categorization of warships in a higher position in the hierarchy such as
the Joao Coutinho
class or various fast attack craft to corvettes, such as Molniya or Nanuchka class, without having
missile
launch capability or their capabilities are inferior to a modern
corvette respectively. I did my best to avoid all
these unfair classifications and based on capabilities, size and
armament I divided all the classes. I have excluded types of
warships such as landing craft, offshore patrol vessels (including the Romanian Type 22 frigates), gunboats, various auxiliaries, etc. Obsolete ships or ships of which their status is unknown, they have been excluded. Bulgarian ships that have missile launchers are reported that they do not carry missiles but I cannot verify that, thus they are included. The warships of the United States 6th Fleet are included in both graphs. Please note that the silhouettes represent the type of the vessel and not the class.

Monday, 4 February 2019

In
the following infographic, The United States Navy Cruisers & Destroyers in 2019,
I
depict all the cruisers and destroyers that will be in active service with the United
States Navy by December 31, 2019. A similar graph (#1) titled The United States Navy Submarines in 2019, illustrates all the submarines that are in active service with the United States Navy in February 2, 2019. Currently, the United States Navy
operates a massive amount of powerful guided missile large surface combatants, 92 in total (!),
consisting of two 190-meter Zumwalt class destroyers (DDG) (which are actually 16,000ton cruisers) with one more vessel to join the fleet this year, 22 Ticonderoga class cruisers (CG) and 66 Arleigh Burke class destroyers with two more vessels to join the fleet this year. The Ticonderoga class cruisers are "double enders", and along with the Zumwalt class "destroyers", are the only surface combatants in the US fleet that can employ two large caliber guns simultaneously. Ticonderogas have received several upgrades including the removal of the AN/SPS-49 radar and the installation of the SPQ-9B radar on the first 11 vessels in the class. Currently, the US Navy has no frigates in the fleet. However, if the littoral combat ships of the Freedom and Independence classes will receive anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile weapons, they will be considered as light frigates.

Saturday, 26 January 2019

The following images illustrate the most important classes of warships
that were in service with the navies of Yugoslavia, Greece, Poland and Finland during the World War II. All the images are created by www.naval-encyclopedia.com. In that page you can read some excellent naval history articles, to download
other graphs or you can purchase the same graphs in high resolution in
the online shop! More posts will follow
for your collection of current naval fleets but also of fleets from the
past.

Saturday, 12 January 2019

The Izumo-class "helicopter destroyers" of the JMSDF. Both will be converted to aircraft carriers and will carry F-35B fighters

Following Japan's defeat in World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy was dissolved by the Potsdam Declaration acceptance. Japan's 1947 Constitution was drawn up after the conclusion of the war, Article 9
specifying that "The Japanese people forever renounce war as a
sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means
of settling international disputes." The prevalent view in Japan is that
this article allows for military forces to be kept for the purposes of
self-defense. In 1954, the JMSDF was formally created as the naval branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), following the passage of the 1954 Self-Defense Forces Law. The first ships in the JMSDF were former U.S. Navy
destroyers, transferred to Japanese control in 1954. In 1956, the JMSDF
received its first domestically produced destroyer since World War II, Harukaze. You can read more about The evolution of Japanese destroyers after WWII. This FLEETS
post is devoted exclusively to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force
today, one of the most powerful navies on the planet. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (海上自衛隊 Kaijō Jieitai), JMSDF, also referred to as the Japanese Navy, is tasked with the naval defense of Japan. The JMSDF has a fleet of 154 ships and 346 aircraft and consists of approximately 45,800 personnel. The first graph (G #1) includes all the carriers, submarines, destroyers, frigates, missile boats and naval aviation (ASW/SAR/MPA/ELINT) that will be in active service by March 2019. The.. "offensive" force if I may say. Note that in December 2018, the Japanese Cabinet gave approval to convert both 248-meter Izumo-class helicopter destroyers into aircraft carriers capable of operating the F-35B STOVL fighter! A second graph (#2) will follow soon in this post, whith all the replenishment ships (5 ships), mine countermeasure vessels (25 vessels), landing craft (9 craft), training ships (8 ships) and other auxiliaries.

Friday, 28 December 2018

This
is the seventh article about various countries' navies today. In these
articles, I briefly describe a country's naval fleet
by reporting the ships in each type/category of warships and by
providing a
nice image where all the types of warships are illustrated and the
units of its class are reported. I include the vessels that will enter
in service this year and I have excluded those that are about to be
decommissioned. I deliberately excluded many classes of
auxiliary ships; those that they have "0" defence capacity and those
that have secondary roles such as hydrographic survey ships, tugs,
depollution vessels and training ships.